


welcome to apartment 4B

by thewordsofalullaby



Category: New Girl (TV 2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Arguing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Friendship, Humor, Parallel Universes, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29717172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewordsofalullaby/pseuds/thewordsofalullaby
Summary: 4B -It’s 7 AM. For the love of God, stop singing.- 4DJess moves into Apartment 4B after finding an amazing deal on Craigslist and ends up starting a feud with the guy who lives next door. None of it is her fault.Meanwhile: Nick's pretty unhappy that he's now being forced to listen to a girl singing theme tunes about her own life through his bedroom wall.(S1 AU.a parallel universe where Jess doesn't move into 4D)
Relationships: Jessica Day & Cece Parekh, Jessica Day & Nick Miller, Jessica Day/Nick Miller, Nick Miller & Schmidt (New Girl), Winston Bishop & Nick Miller
Comments: 34
Kudos: 45





	1. cupcakes

Okay, so, Jess isn’t exactly sure how it happens, but she may or may not have entered into an unspoken war with the guy who lives next door to her, despite having just moved in. It’s not _her_ fault at all; hey, she doesn’t mean to toot her own horn or anything, but people tend to like her almost immediately—she’s a people person, okay? Always has been, ever since she’d discovered that she had a real knack for baking and could quite literally win people’s affections over with the right choice of icing.

Everything had started when she'd been scouring the internet for a place to live after leaving Spencer behind in their, now _his_ , place (and, um, practically all of her belongings, save for the measly trench-coat she’d been wearing—or, rather, if you want to get specific about it, the measly trench-coat that Rebecca Johnson-slash-Tiger-Boobs had _not_ been wearing), moving in temporarily with Cece, and then promptly deciding that she definitely couldn’t crash there forever. (The latter decision was mostly because Nadia wouldn’t stop singing the jingle from that stupid Russian cracker commercial-slash-propaganda every time they bumped into each other until she’d cracked one day (pun intended, thank you very much) and found herself writing _monkey, monkey_ on the paper she’d been in the middle of grading instead of her usual _good job! keep it up!)_

It’d been a real stroke of luck really (which, honestly, given the events of the past month, she’d been kinda overdue for), but she’d ended up checking Craigslist for apartments on a whim and stumbled onto this amazing deal, this perfect one bed apartment on the top floor of a high-rise. She’d gone to visit it alone despite Cece’s protests (“Jess, it’s _Craigslist_ ," she’d said, one eyebrow quirked as if that explained everything, but it really didn’t), fell in love with the space almost immediately and moved into Apartment 4B a week later. (Side-note: so, um, yes, she did find out that the reason why it was on the market for so cheap was because the previous owner had died in there a year prior, like, apparently right in the middle of the kitchen, but, hey, it’s not like the body’s still there and she’s in a bit of a tight spot so—it’s all good. It’s fine. She doesn’t think about it. Much.)

Anyway—so, there are four apartments on her floor, 4A, 4B, 4C and 4D, and she decides that she's going to try to be an A+ neighbour and leave them all hand-crafted house-warming gifts on her first day and hopefully get some friends out of it in the process (“Jess, babe, isn’t it usually the other way around? Like, shouldn’t they be bringing _you_ things?” Cece had asked, which, maybe she’s right, but also—she’s moving into _their_ space, right? She’s the one invading their shared hallway? Plus, if there’s one thing that she knows how to do, it’s how to make a good first impression. She’s spent _years_ refining her technique). Once Cece and Nadia have left her to settle in, she heads down to the nearest store to pick up some supplies and then immediately starts sifting through the limited boxes of her belongings until she finds the one that’s carefully labelled ‘baking supplies 1/15' (the numbering system is actually a bit redundant, because what would have gone in boxes 2 to 15 is still at Spencer's place but... she's going to get it all back. Just, not yet.) She digs through the box, manages to find what she needs and bakes them all a batch of cupcakes – red velvet, topped with vanilla buttercream and a healthy scattering of rainbow sprinkles, also known as: the Jessica Day Special – and writes a handwritten note introducing herself, making sure to include her phone number in case, you know, they ever need her help for something. She puts everything in little baskets that she painstakingly shapes out of some spare twine she finds lying around in one of her boxes, wraps each one up with a silk ribbon, throws in a good handful of glitter, and then leaves a basket outside of each door. It’s not perfect because she hasn’t had enough time to fully unpack and organise her craft corner (by type of material, then by colour, then alphabetically), but she’s still pretty pleased with herself. You go, girl. You can do this. You can do this responsible adulting living alone thing.

Apartment 4A gratefully accepts the cupcakes and a cute kid shyly knocks on her door a day later and silently gives her a plate of chocolate chip cookies in return (she tries to invite him in, in the most friendliest and neighbourliness of ways, but he just looks at her and mouths _stranger danger_ and she immediately backs down: good parenting, 4A!), Apartment 4C looks like it’s currently unoccupied because the cupcakes remain untouched for over three days (or, um, whoever’s living in there has _also_ died, which—okay, Jess, don’t go there), and Apartment 4D…well, that’s where she has a problem. The cupcakes disappear the next day, but she doesn’t get a note back or even a simple acknowledgement that they’d been there in the first place.

That’s really how her feud with the guy in Apartment 4D starts, she guesses: with a gift basket of cupcakes on day two of her time in 4B.

* * *

…so, uh, here’s the thing: Nick didn’t realise that someone had moved into Apartment 4B. It’s been empty for as long as he can remember, which, okay, fine, in all honesty, is not that long: he drinks, okay? All he knows is that he stumbles home from the bar after his shift in the early hours of the morning one day and trips over this object lying in the middle of the doorway, almost face-planting himself onto the ground. He manages to catch himself and stay upright at the last minute, pats himself on the back both figuratively and literally at his achievement, and then squints at the offending object on the floor. For a second, he’s not sure if he’s dreaming (again, he drinks, okay? He’s not ashamed of it; on the contrary, he’s actually proud of it), because, for some ungodly reason, he’s staring straight at some horrendous glittery cage-like structure made out of, uh, straw? Hay? Some…other material used to build barns? He slaps himself across both cheeks, then rubs his eyes for good measure, but nope, the object is still there, glinting at him almost tauntingly, as if _yes_ , it’s kinda pleased that it almost managed to trip him over and break his neck—except, uh, Miller, you haven’t really had _that_ much to drink so if you'd actually fallen over that would have all been on you (despite popular opinion, he would actually quite like to keep his job so he never drinks (much) when he’s tending bar—'much', being the key word there), and two, it’s an inanimate object so it’s definitely not mocking you. Christ, get it together, Miller.

He takes a deep breath, slaps himself across both cheeks again, and then gingerly picks it up, holding it at arm’s length as he eyes it suspiciously. It’s a little bit deformed after being partially stepped on and he’s pretty sure he’s getting glitter all over himself (ugh) just by picking it up, but on the bright-side—hey, are those cupcakes? He brings the object a little closer then until it’s close enough that he’s _definitely_ getting glitter all over himself, but he suddenly doesn’t care about that because his suspicions are confirmed and there really are cupcakes sitting in this death trap of a straw cage. It’s not really relevant, but the cupcakes are actually kinda pretty ones, the icing all twirly on the top in a way that, uh, he’s always liked looking at—not that he’d ever admit that out loud, because, you know, he’s a man, okay? He doesn’t just sit in his room sometimes just scrolling the internet and looking at baked goods because he’s too lazy to go to the store and buy some for himself; no, really, he doesn’t. The only time he ever looks at fancy cupcakes is on the occasions when Schmidt will unapologetically interrupt him and Winston while they’re in the middle of watching a game and change the channel to whatever baking competition show is currently popular on Food Network. That’s really the only time. He swears. (Though, uh, don’t check his internet browsing history. Please and thank you.)

His phone pings then and, speak of the devil, it’s Schmidt. Well, not real-life Schmidt, but, uh, robot Schmidt? He doesn’t really want to get into it, but Schmidt’s somehow programmed his phone to text them every hour they’re awake (which, for him, means that he gets regular texts between the hours of noon to 5 AM) and if Schmidt doesn’t get a reply within half an hour, he gets alerted on his fancy, top-of-the-line smartphone. It’s a whole ordeal, and he’d tried to complain about how unnecessary it was (and y’know, boundaries), but Schmidt had given him that face that looked like he was going to start crying, mumbling something inaudible about 'feelings' under his breath, and in the end, he’d just yelled _fine, do whatever you want, Schmidt!_ , walked away and slammed his bedroom door, and now he’s resigned to this life forever. He quickly replies to Schmidt’s automated text with one hand and then unlocks the door, dragging the cupcakes in with him. He contemplates for a split-second about whether he should leave them in the kitchen for the others to share, but then he remembers that he hasn’t had dinner yet and he’s frankly too exhausted to make a proper meal (‘proper meal’, meaning 'reheating his leftover pizza from three days ago'). After a quick glance around to check that none of his roommates are waiting to ambush him, he slides into his room with the straw monstrosity in his hand, throws himself on his bed face-down and then starts eating the cupcakes, ignoring the fact that it’s not really the best angle to be eating anything in and that he’s probably getting crumbs everywhere.

He’s halfway through his third cupcake when he notices that there’s a note slipped in between them, a few specks of icing now smushed on it, and it hits him that he still has no idea why these cupcakes magically appeared outside of their door. He takes another bite of the cupcake in his hand and then unfolds the note, smoothing it out and skimming it curiously:

_Hi! I’m Jess, I’ve just moved into Apartment 4B!_

_I hope you enjoy these cupcakes – no-one can resist red velvet, right?_

_Jess xoxo_

_PS – here’s my number in case you ever need me for anything! Stop by and say hi! :)_

He grimaces at the note (does anyone really need to use that many exclamation marks in one message? seriously, _come on_ ), crumples it up in his hand and goes back to eating the rest of the cupcake in peace. He knows almost immediately that he and this _Jess_ girl probably aren’t going to get along (or, if he can help it, ever meet), but…she is pretty damn good at making cupcakes. He’ll give her that.

He ends up falling asleep twenty minutes later, the note lost somewhere between the edge of his bed and his shelves, and he promptly forgets that it ever existed as he slips into the realm of Sleeping Nick—or, at least, he would have, but he’s rudely woken up just an hour later at the crack of dawn by the sound of someone singing _brightly_ and _cheerfully_ filtering through the thin walls of his bedroom and into his ears. It takes him a second to realise what's happening, but then he remembers that the wall which his bed is backed up against is also the wall that happens to connect Apartment 4D with Apartment 4B and...hell no. He pounds at the wall to try and get her attention, while at the same time shoving a pillow over his head in an attempt to muffle the sound, but either she can’t hear him over the sound of her own voice or she just doesn’t care, because she doesn’t shut up. He lets out a scream into his pillow, pounds at the wall a bit harder, but if anything, her voice gets louder and—wait, is she singing about herself? Does she have a theme song…about her own life? What kind of fresh hell is this?! If he didn't already know her name was Jess thanks to her note, he definitely does now.

He stays in bed for ten minutes longer before he can’t take it anymore, braving the kitchen to see Schmidt and Winston having breakfast, seemingly unaffected by the morning’s turn of events—though, actually, now that he thinks about it, he can’t really hear anything from out here. Huh.

“Nick? Are you okay?” Schmidt asks, his eyes widening in surprise as he spots him and then promptly starts backing away into his own room. “Wait, the only reason why you’d be up this early is if you’re sick and I have an important presentation to make this morning so you better not take another step forward—”

“—I’m not sick,” he replies curtly, continuing to shuffle forward and pointedly ignoring the fact that Schmidt is now miming a cross with his arms as if he's trying to exorcise him from across the room. “Can’t sleep. Someone’s moved into 4B and they won’t shut the hell up.”

Winston blinks and glances up at him curiously.

  
“Someone’s moved into 4B? Really?”

“You seriously didn’t hear her?”

Winston shakes his head, followed by Schmidt, and he promptly moves forward enough so that he can drag them both into his room where, _goddamn it_ , 4B girl is still singing at the top of her lungs, though now there’s the distinctive sound of footsteps as well as if she’s spinning around on her floor.

  
“Oh.”

“Can you do something about it?” He asks, gesturing to his wall a little helplessly. “I’m exhausted and I can’t deal with this right now.”

Schmidt shrugs and then leans forward to pat him on the shoulder.

“Sorry, man, I got to go,” he says, except even though he’s admittedly not that in tune with Schmidt’s daily routine, he knows enough to know that he doesn’t actually need to go for another seventeen minutes, the _jerk._

He turns to Winston instead, who just shrugs at him in almost exactly the same way Schmidt had done.

  
“It’s your wall,” he points out, then mumbles something that he doesn’t quite understand about needing to give Furguson his butt pills (what?) at precise times. “Your wall, your problem.”

He sighs loudly, curses the fact that he has absolutely useless roommates, and then waits until he hears them both leave the loft before sneaking into Schmidt’s room and stealing one of his winter scarves from his closet. He roughly wraps it around his head, covering his eyes and ears as best as he can, and then tries his best to sleep again. Schmidt must be buying thinner scarves lately or something though because they don’t seem to be particularly soundproof and he can still hear 4B girl screaming at the top of her lungs through the material. He lets out another string of creative curses into his pillow and then sits back upright, googles ‘how to soundproof your bedroom’ and moves onto Plan B. He empties the eggs that they have in the fridge into a bowl and then roughly tapes the egg carton onto the wall that he shares with 4B using a piece of duct tape, in hopes that it’ll muffle the sound like the YouTube tutorial he'd stumbled across claimed it would. It takes him about twenty minutes of taping the egg carton up in different orientations and positions before he eventually concludes that the YouTube people are straight-up liars; not only can he _still_ hear 4B, but now he also has an egg carton stuck in the middle of his wall like an idiot.

…so, he resorts to Plan C: he tears off a scrap of cardboard from the egg carton and scribbles down a short, blunt note and slips it under the door of 4B. He pounds as hard as he can on the door to get her attention and then quickly retreats away and slips back into his bed. There’s a break in her singing for a second, and then, the sound of footsteps moving around, and then— _finally_ , silence.

* * *

4B –

It’s 7 AM. For the love of God, _stop singing._

\- 4D

* * *

She wouldn’t say she was mad at 4D, per se, but she’s also not _not_ mad. It’s just, she’d done the good, upstanding citizen, neighbourly thing and made them cupcakes and introduced herself, right? …and all she’d gotten in return was a rude note telling her to essentially _shut up_ (okay, so it didn’t quite say that in those words, but it might as well have). What's worse is that it wasn’t even signed with a name, just a cold, informal ‘4D’. She rants to Cece about it for a full hour, in between her usual _I-hate-Spencer_ monologue, until Cece promptly cuts her off and offers to come over and knock some sense into them. She almost takes her up on the offer because she’s always hated confrontation, but she doesn’t in the end, because these are her neighbours, not Cece’s, and she’s going to make them like her. She _has_ to!

She spends the weekend subtly spying on the movements of her neighbours through the little peephole on her front door. She feels marginally guilty about doing it, but she’s riled up enough by stupid 4D that she doesn’t feel guilty enough about it to stop, even going as far as to starting a new page in her notebook to record the odd things she observes. (Plus...the more she thinks about 4D, the less she thinks about Spencer and his beautiful hair, and that can only be a good thing, right?) She concludes pretty fast that there’s more than one occupant of 4D: there’s a guy who always seems to be dressed in a suit that walks down the hallway and to the elevator fast and with purpose, a guy who’s almost always carrying a cat in his arms, seemingly talking to it as he walks past her door, and a guy who she only manages to catch twice, dressed in the same scruffy red hoodie both times, dragging his feet a little as he gets into the elevator. She supposes she should probably be the bigger person here and stop hiding behind her door and actually go and introduce herself in person, but—hey, if they’re going to eat her cupcakes without saying thanks and then slip her a note and tell her to shut up, well, then, she’s not so sure they’re people she necessarily wants to be friends with. (...and that's really saying something, because she's always prided herself on being able to see the best in people.)

It takes another few days of what Cece affectionately calls ‘crazy stalker behaviour’, all holed up in her apartment and splitting her time evenly between watching - and crying over - Dirty Dancing and spying on her fellow neighbours, before she actually bumps into any of them in person. She doesn’t mean to do it either: she’s in the elevator on her way down to meet Cece for some drinks when a hand slips through the closing doors and it reopens. It’s the red hoodie guy from 4D, who, okay, so this is a bit off-topic and she’s still very much mad at all three of them (not to mention, she's completely sworn herself off guys for the time-being after the whole Spencer fiasco), but he’s kinda…cute in a perpetual bed-head kind of way. _Not_ that that's important. Or relevant. At all. 

“Sorry,” he says as he sidles in besides her, except he doesn’t really look particularly sorry, promptly turning so that his back is facing her and she can’t see his face anymore.

She eyes his back for a second, clenching and unclenching her fists a few times as she debates whether or not she should confront him about their note, and then ultimately decides that—screw it, she's going to do it because she’s not in the wrong here. She’s done everything right. If there was a competition for being a good neighbour, she’d give herself and 4A gold stars for effort, whereas 4D wouldn't even win participation prizes!

“You could have just asked politely,” she mutters, before she can second-guess herself.

She watches as the muscles in his back tense up at the sound of her voice, holding her breath as he slowly turns back around to stare at her, crossing his arms across his chest as he meets her gaze.

“What are you talking about?”

“The note,” she clarifies. “You could have just asked me politely to keep it down if I was being too loud.”

He blinks at her, frowns slightly, his mouth curving downwards.

“I _was_ being polite,” he retorts.

“That was you being polite?” She scoffs, with an accompanying shake of her head, giving him her very best incredulous look, mildly aware that her words are coming out increasingly loudly. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” he says, his frown deepening, and then suddenly his voice is rising to match hers. “Hey, you’re the one that was _screaming_ through the walls at 6 AM, not me.”

“What? I wasn’t screaming, I was just—”

“—Yeah, you were. You were screaming with a capital S,” he replies, and then he promptly turns back around again, effectively ending their conversation, and she’s left there gaping at his back for a few seconds, her breaths coming out in fast bursts.

She grits her teeth slightly, keeping her lips shut, her fists clenched. She’d been mad at 4D before, but now she’s _furious_. It’s uncomfortably silent all the way down to the ground floor, the little space that exists between them just filled with the sounds of them breathing. It’s only until the elevator stops moving and he’s made it out when he turns back to face her again:

“Guess I should thank ya for the cupcakes,” he says wryly, shooting her a look that’s a mix of sheepish and another emotion she can't quite pinpoint, running a hand through his hair, eyes glinting. “Y’know, if we're talking about good manners and all.”

…and then, just like that, he’s gone again, spinning back around and leaving her still standing in the middle of the elevator. She’s still mad about the whole note incident, but at least he has…some manners? She can work with that. Or...wait a second, was he mocking her just then? It wasn't exactly a genuine 'thank you', was it? More of a... _I know I should say thank you, but I'm not going to._ She's never been very good at reading the line between the two.

She replays the conversation to Cece when she gets down to the bar and Cece just reaches forward and soothingly pats her hand and confirms that yeah, he probably _was_ teasing her. ("Was he hot though? Because, you know, that changes everything," Cece informs her matter-of-factly, but she doesn't give her an answer, all riled up over stupid 4D all over again.) It hits her an hour later after a few glasses of pink wine that she never asked for his name, which, all things considered, would have probably been the legitimately polite thing to do. But hey. She's mad at him, okay?

None of this is her fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly i don't know what this is, but i'm rolling with it. i guess it's kind of roughly following S1, but set in a parallel universe? 
> 
> let me know your thoughts if you have any! :) hate it/like it/whatever you want


	2. horse pyjamas

4B –

What are you watching and how is it so loud?!

\- 4D

* * *

4B –

Some of us are trying to sleep.

\- 4D

* * *

4B –

Can you put on a different movie? Literally _anything else_.

\- 4D

* * *

Nick’s not sure exactly what is going on with the girl in 4B, but every day seems to get decidedly worse. Not only does she still wake him up every morning at 6 AM without fail, but his situation has evolved from listening to her singing theme tunes about herself to, well, listening to her _sobbing_ over Dirty Dancing. On repeat. The first time it had happened, he’d ended up spending a delirious, sleep-deprived hour trying to figure out whether he had somehow drifted off into a dream and straight into hell (he had not, but maybe hell would be better than this?). The second time, he’d screamed into his pillow and then pounded the wall hard enough that he’d heard her sniffle loudly in response and then…silence. And, the third time? Well, the third time, he’d woken up just in time to catch the beginning of the movie, so he’d ended up grabbing his – well, Schmidt’s – laptop from his desk and streaming it in time with her because he was genuinely curious to why on Earth she was watching it over and over _and over_ again. (Objectively speaking, the movie would have probably been better without the soundtrack of her crying in the background, and he’s still not any closer to figuring out why she feels the need to listen to it at least six times a day, but all in all? Pretty solid movie. No complaints there.) The fourth, fifth and sixth time, he’d gone back to screaming into his pillow and punching his wall until his knuckles started to sting.

Don’t get him wrong, he’s not a complete jerk. He does feel kinda bad knowing that that she’s clearly going through something, but, at the same time, they don’t know each other and they’re not friends, and…does she really need to be playing it that loud? He thought he’d made it extremely clear where he stood on the volume front when he’d bumped into her in the elevator several days ago, but there’s been zero change in volume since then and—if he’s honest, it’s driving him crazy. He’s not entirely sure how much more of this madness he can take. He needs his sleep, okay?

Schmidt and Winston remain completely – and annoyingly – unsympathetic to his cause, just reaching over and patting him on the shoulder (do they _need_ to touch him?) whenever he tries to complain.

“Guys, you don’t understand how loud she’s being,” he moans on the seventh (!) day in a row that he’s been woken up by the sound of her sobbing _‘I’ve had the time of my life’_ (which, again, he doesn’t get why she’s listening to this non-stop, because she’s clearly _not_ having the time of her life). “I’m going crazy. I can’t take it.”

“Just go and talk to her then,” Winston says, without even bothering to look up from the jigsaw he’s putting together.

He frowns.

“I already did!”

“Did you?”

“What are you talking about? I just said I did!”

“Wait, so you’ve actually met her? Like, you’ve actually seen her with your own eyes?” Schmidt cuts in then, leaning across the table, his eyes suddenly lit up in interest. “What is she? A six? A seven? An eight? A _nine?_ ” He asks, progressively moving up his hand with each step. “You’re kidding me, a ten? Eleven—okay, there’s no way that’s possible. I’m starting again.”

Nick squints at him for a second in confusion, his brain still fuzzy with sleep, but then his mind clicks at what he’s getting at.

“Jar, Schmidt,” he says, gesturing towards the jar that’s almost filled to the brim with notes lying near the couch, before shaking his head in exasperation. (Although…side-note: if she wasn’t currently the bane of his existence, he might have said that she was pretty. Like, really, really pretty, with eyes that were almost blue enough to make him forget how irritating she's being. _Almost_ , but not quite.)

“Well, if you’re not going to tell me, then how about I go over there and talk to her for you?” Schmidt offers as he walks over to the jar and stuffs a $5 note in. “What did you say her name was again?”

“Uh, her name’s Jess, but I’ll take care of it,” he replies, grimacing slightly at the thought of Schmidt stepping in.

“You sure? Because I bet I could get her to be quiet,” Schmidt says, leaning against the edge of the counter and running a hand down his chest. “I mean, look at this. This is LLS: Ladies Love Schmidt—"

“—What did you just say? What is wrong with you? Schmidt, put another dollar in the jar!”

“—Yeah, and do _not_ take your shirt off right now! We’re the only ones here!”

In the end, he retreats into his bedroom for twenty minutes, partly because he’s frankly exhausted and partly because Schmidt really does take his shirt off (why?!), his hood pulled firmly over his head. It’s oddly silent, in a way that it hasn’t been ever since 4B girl moved in. He doesn’t spend any longer questioning it than he has to, collapsing onto his bed and under his covers, letting his eyes shut and his mind drift off to sleep—but just when his thoughts have gone all fuzzy and his limbs all loose, he hears a faint sniffle through the wall, right by his head, followed by some scuffling, and then Dirty Dancing is playing all over again.

It’s in that precise moment when he decides that’s enough is enough. He’d tried to be polite, hadn’t he? He’d slipped notes under her door! He hadn’t yelled at her in the elevator, even though he desperately wanted to! He’d just stopped Schmidt from going over to harass her!

Well, two can play at this game.

Two. Can. Play.

(He gets home from his shift the next day, positions his laptop right against his bedroom wall and then purposefully starts a rerun of The Walking Dead with his speakers turned as high as they can go. He’s seen the episode a hundred times before so he’s not even watching. He just wants revenge.)

* * *

Jess doesn’t bump into red hoodie guy from 4D again, but things between her and 4D don’t improve; if anything, they get progressively, significantly worse. Despite their first – and only – encounter in the elevator, she’s still getting passive-aggressive notes slipped under her door at all hours, and she already doing her best to keep quiet. What more does he want? Absolute silence? She can't stop herself from singing! Cece shoots her a look that’s both pity and exasperation at the same time when she complains about it for the seventh day in a row, telling her that she should either learn to ignore the notes (“Jess, they’re just bits of paper. All you have to do is throw them away. You don’t even need to read them!”) or, worse, write back (“I mean, you have always said that you wanted a pen-pal, right?” “Not like this!”). She doesn’t do either; instead, she draws his face on a melon that she’d initially bought to make a fruit salad, sticks it in the corner of her room, and throws each note she receives vigorously at its head. It’s childish of her, she knows, but it kinda, sorta helps. The rest of her waking hours are spent curled up in her bed watching Dirty Dancing on repeat and cursing Spencer (and his beautiful, shiny hair), because it turns out that living alone means that she has a lot of time to relive his cheating ways. She hates him for leaving her for _Rochelle_ , she really does, but—they’re going to be friends one day in the future, so she just has to get through this, right? This is just…a temporary dip in their relationship.

She’s fast asleep on a Sunday evening after spending the entire day at IKEA trying to buy furniture for her new apartment, surrounded by cardboard boxes, when she’s suddenly jolted out of her dreams by the sounds of people screaming through her wall. She blearily glances at her alarm clock to find that it’s 3 AM, also known as, approximately three hours until she needs to wake up for school, or, in other words, way too early. She slides out of bed and tries to dig through her purse for her headphones, her eyes drooping shut out of exhaustion as she does so, before remembering that _damn it_ , they’re still at Spencer’s along with 90% of her material possessions. Knocking on her wall with both fists doesn’t seem to help (in fact, she thinks she might have heard a low chuckle in response, which makes her even more infuriated) and neither does throwing a pencil at the melon face she has in the corner (she feels kinda bad about that as soon as she does it so she apologises, but also, _no_ , this is not her fault), and so, in the end, she pinches the bridge of her nose, forces herself to take a few deep, calming breaths, and then stalks over to 4D.

The door to 4D opens almost immediately to reveal a dim outline of red hoodie guy, as if he’d known that she was about to knock. His hair is all ruffled and he slouches against the doorframe in an easy, lazy posture, but his eyes are alert as he takes her in, the slightest of smirks crossing his face.

“Can you keep it down? I need to be up in three hours,” she grits out, without waiting for him to make small-talk, already irritated by the smug, self-satisfied look on his face.

He meets her eyes, lets out a low scoff and slowly crosses his arms against his chest.

“Well, well, well,” he says slowly, dragging out the syllables, his voice taunting, “look how the tables have turned.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“I didn’t say it was,” he replies, giving her a shrug, and then, shoots her a satisfied grin, the corners of his mouth curling upwards. “Just, you’ve woken me up every day this week so, I’m not going to lie to ya, I’m feeling _pretty_ _good_ right now.”

She squeezes her eyes shut so she doesn’t have to look at his face anymore, mentally reminding herself how to breathe. You can do this, Jess. Don’t let him get to you. Just tell him to turn his volume down so you can sleep.

“—Also, what the hell are ya wearing? Are those horses? Like, horseshoe horses?”

She blearily opens her eyes at that, glancing down at herself, her cheeks flushing slightly as she remembers that she’d been fast-asleep before she’d been rudely woken up and forced to walk over here so, yeah, she kinda _is_ dressed in a two-piece pyjama set with horses on them. (Although—hey! She likes these pyjamas! She’s gotten a ton of compliments about them, most of which may have been from Spencer – _ugh_ – or Cece, but still. They count.)

“Yeah, they’re horses,” she replies, straightening up her posture and staring up at him defiantly, a surge of satisfaction rushing up her spine as she sees him swallow ever so slightly in response. “Do you have a problem with that as well?”

“…As well? I don’t have a problem,” he retorts instantly, his eyes narrowing, before raising a hand to point at her and then at himself. “Aren’t you the one that came over to knock on my door?”

She lets out a tired sigh, deflating a bit as she remembers the exact reason that she's standing here and how she _really, desperately_ needs to get more sleep or she’s going to have a horrible day tomorrow.

“Can you just please keep it down?” She asks him, trying her best to stop her voice from straying into pleading territory, except she kinda gets the impression that might be what’s going to work here. “Look, I, um, I got your notes, okay? All of them. I’ll do my best to be even quieter. I swear.”

“What if I don’t want to keep it down?”

“Are you being serious?”

He shrugs, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“I have school tomorrow. I really, really need to get some more sleep,” she states slowly, kinda wishing that she had her melon version of 4D here so she could throw something at its head and relieve some of the frustration building up inside of her chest. “ _Please_.”

There’s a pause, and for a split-second, she thinks that he might actually be reasonable about this, but then his face crumples up, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion (and, also, mild horror?)

“Wait, you’re in school? How old are you?”

She blinks, clenching her fists slightly in annoyance. How can she be getting absolutely nowhere with him? She’s usually excellent at navigating these sorts of conversations!

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m a teacher,” she tells him curtly, “and I need to be up in less than three hours, so, again, can you please keep it down?”

There’s another pause as he considers her words, slowly uncrossing his arms and sticking his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants, pursing his lips slightly in thought.

“Okay,” he says after a beat, leaning a bit more heavily against the doorframe.

“Okay? Just…like that?”

He grins then, his eyes suddenly warm and boyish. It’s a big enough contrast from the red-hoodie-guy-from-4D that she’s used to that she immediately narrows her eyes in response, instantly on guard.

“Sure, I’ll keep it down,” he agrees, his voice light and nonchalant, before fixing his eyes on hers again, his grin widening as he continues, “...but you’ll owe me one.”

“—Why would I owe _you_ one?!”

He shrugs at her, doesn’t reply for a few seconds, and then straightens up from the doorframe, raising a hand to her in farewell.

“Alright then, well, nice talking to ya. Have a good night, or, I guess, good morning,” he says brightly, slowly moving to shut the door in her face, but she immediately takes a step forward and lodges herself in the gap.

“Wait, wait, no, don’t,” she mumbles out, trying her hardest not to think about the fact that she’s definitely just invaded his personal space and she can kinda feel him breathing, his frame all solid next to hers—and whoa there, Jess, you clearly are sleep-deprived. This is _4D_! 4-frickin’-D!

“Fine, whatever, okay. I agree.”

“Say it,” he says, taking a step back from her, gesturing aimlessly in the space between them with one hand. "I want to hear you say it."

“What?”

He grins, shooting her a challenging look, crossing his arms across his chest again.

“I’m not going to say it,” she replies, gritting her teeth slightly, taking a step backwards until she’s back in the safety of the hallway again and she can breathe freely.

“Oh, c’mon,” he says, except she can tell he’s teasing her this time because he’s still grinning, his tone light. “All you have to say is 'Nick, you’re the best and I owe ya one', and I'll be quiet, I swear.

“Yeah, I am not going to say that. Be as loud as you want,” she retorts, eyes wide in disbelief, shaking her head at him hard, and then promptly storms away back to her own apartment, ignoring the fact that she can hear him chuckling from across the hall.

She waits until she’s firmly closed and locked her door before she pulls a face at it, sticking her tongue out in the direction of 4D even though she knows he can’t see her. It’s…eerily quiet in her bedroom for the rest of the night though, enough that she drifts off to sleep without much effort, almost as if 4D guy – _Nick_ – might have actually done the decent thing and turned his volume down.

Huh.

(She turns the volume down on her own laptop two notches in response. She still doesn’t like him _,_ but fair’s fair, right?)

* * *

Dear: Nick in 4D

Thanks for turning your volume down the other night.

From: Jess in 4B

* * *

4B -

Did you really just start a note with ' _Dear'_?

What year are we living in? 1950?

\- 4D

* * *

They get invited to a mutual friend’s wedding several days later, and Schmidt accepts the invite on all of their behalf’s without even asking them. If he had, he would have vehemently refused to go, because do you know who else is friends with that mutual friend of theirs? _Caroline_. As in, his ex-girlfriend, Caroline. As in, the girl who dumped him six months ago out of nowhere. As in, the girl he’s completely 100% over, thank you very much.

“Is this going to be a problem?” Schmidt asks, interrupting his rant-slash-monologue about how Schmidt can’t just _accept invitations without asking them_ because _they’re all independent guys with independent lives_. “I honestly forgot that Caroline might be there, but I also don’t want to live in a loft with you sobbing your eyes out again so if this is going to be a problem, you have to let me know now—”

“—I wasn’t sobbing my eyes out!”

“Yeah, you were. For approximately four months and two weeks,” Winston chimes in, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder, causing him to flinch in response and pull away, grimacing hard. “It’s okay, Nick. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

There’s a pause.

“Well, kind of. I mean, after the second month of crying, it got a bit much, but—”

“—What’s your point, Winston?” He interrupts, narrowing his eyes. "And, for the record, I never _sobbed_ , okay? Cry...maybe. Sob, never."

Winston doesn’t reply, just glances over at Schmidt, and the two have some weird eye conversation that he’s not privy to, their eyes flashing at one another.

“This is definitely a problem,” Winston comments, followed by Schmidt nodding his head in agreement. “Can we, I don’t know, retract the invite?”

Schmidt lets out an audible gasp at that, a look of mock outrage passing across his face.

“We can’t just retract the invite! The wedding’s in a month! We can’t mess up the seating plans!”

“They’re not _your_ seating plans. It's not your wedding,” Winston interjects, which, honestly? He’s on Winston’s side here, 100%.

"We're not retracting the invite," Schmidt repeats firmly, and then turns to look at him, his eyes tinged with the slightest bit of concern. “Look, Nick, are you going to be okay? We could find you a date or something? Something to keep you distracted from Caroline, if you catch my drift.”

He rubs a hand roughly across his face, grimacing at the way Schmidt’s now waggling his eyebrows at him, even though he’s pretty sure there wasn’t any drift to catch there and his meaning was crystal clear.

“Uh, yeah, I’ll be fine. Absolutely, perfectly fine,” he says quickly, despite the fact that just thinking about Caroline makes his chest ache in a way that can’t be normal. That, or, the bacon he'd shovelled down this morning has conspired to kill him from the inside. Both are equally plausible options. “Do _not_ set me up, Schmidt.”

There’s a pause, both of them inspecting him curiously, before they suddenly start speaking at exactly the same time:

“He’s not going to be fine.”

“Yeah, nope. Definitely not.”

He lets out an exasperated sigh, promptly getting up from the couch and walking towards his bedroom, not wanting to continue this conversation for any longer than he has to.

“Yes, I will! I'll be fine! Do not do anything!”

…except, because his roommates are idiots, it doesn’t quite work, and he wakes up on a Saturday to a line of potential ‘suitors’ queuing up in his living room. Great, just _great_. The only good thing about his weekend is that 4B seems to have quieted down considerably on the other side of the wall, enough that he’s getting an easy eight hours of sleep each night. He's not sure whether it's because of their altercation the other night, or because her life has turned around enough that she doesn't feel the need to rewatch Dirty Dancing obsessively, but he's grateful all the same.

He guesses she's not _that_ annoying when she wants to be. (Weird taste in pyjamas though. Horses? Seriously? Don't get him wrong, she didn't look half-bad in them (and that's really saying something), but...horses? _Horses_?!)

* * *

4B –

I hope the fact that I didn’t get woken up by Dirty Dancing this morning doesn’t mean that you’re dead.

(Not that I particularly care, but that would kinda suck.)

(For you, I mean. It'd probably work out quite nicely for me.)

\- 4D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know your thoughts, good/bad/whatever!
> 
> honestly don't know where this is going, but hey. hopefully someone out there is enjoying this anyway :)


End file.
